Please help me to not hate men

Is there evidence for that. mouse?

Spillage you raise an important point, but I would be wary of police stats. Sexual offences committed by females are woefully under-reported for example.

Prawn, being wary of an individual man walking behind you on a deserted street on the basis that he statistically poses a greater threat than a woman is completely reasonable. For all you know that man could be dangerous. Men do tend to be more violent for lots of complicated reasons, but they are also to be feared in certain contexts because they are stronger. Indeed I'm sure most men would feel alarmed by another man walking behind them because they are more likely to be physically assaulted by another man themselves.

That is all very different from hating men as a class. I believe it counter-effective for feminism to engage in that kind of homogenising class politics. Because if you keep telling men that they're all potential rapists to be regarded with suspicion, then that is what they'll come to believe. It is akin to hating a cultural or racial group for similar reasons, and nothing can come of it but a further reinforcement of the dehumanising divisions that are the source of all the problems in the first place.

"Pitting two groups against each other can only be destructive."

What's much worse is ignoring when one group has dominated, raped, humiliated, exploited, forced births on, and sexualized the suffering of another group globally and for centuries.

British Crime Survey and police crime figures from 2009-10 show men were perpetrators in 91% of all violent incidents in England and Wales.

81% for domestic violence
86% for assault
89% criminal damage
96% for mugging
98% for robbery
98% for sexual offences
99% for child rape

I understand hating men. People hate what they fear.

I come from a particularly close and loving family. All my male relatives, without exception, are lovely, kind people. I also have several clos male friends, indeed the closest friend I ever had was male. This bias that does not change the fact that if I'm being followed down an empty road by a stranger I know I have far more grounds for wariness should that stranger be a man. I don't hate men. Doesn't mean I'm not aware that they are responsible for nearly all violence and that women pose zero physical threat.

Male violence is so deeply embedded in our society that we hardly notice. If a little child disappears or a body is found we all know that the perpetrator is overwhelmingly likely to be a man. Indeed, should a woman commit what I might call "male pattern violence" this is so unusual that it becomes a cause célèbre.

There are three times as many men in prison for sex offences as there are women in prison for anything.

I do think you have an interesting point though.

Of course most men are good, my father, OH and adult son are all peaceful people- 90% of violent crimes are committed by men, 95% of the prisoners in the UK are men ( despite the fact that women are more likely to be given a custodial sentence)

Testosterone has side effects!!

I think saying any class should behave in a particular way is nonsensical.
Men as a class are a lot more violent and a lot more prone to sexual abuse than women as a class. Therefore any woman who is wary of men has a valid reason to be so. Doesn't mean all women should be.
There is an interesting paradox in society telling women not to walk alone/not to get too drunk/not to wear short skirts and being horrified that a woman might say she's wary of men.

This type of thinking so pisses me off.....

So you don't hate all women even though mothers have had their children taken away from them due to neglect or abuse?

You don't hate all women even though girls/ women have bullied other people until that person commits suicide?

You don't hate all women even though females beat up/ mentally abuse their partners?

So you don't hate all women even though there are youtube videos showing girls killing animals for their own amusement?

I'm wary of a "Beware of the dog" sign but I'm not wary of dogs. Kind of says a lot when you think about it.

I don't know enough about class analysis tbh. I think, given the historic and current treatment of women by men, then "women as a class should be wary of men as a class" is a reasonable statement, perhaps. Unless that's not how class analysis should be used?

I'm wary of dogs, horses and cows/bulls (having also grown up around them and been a horse rider), because they are potentially dangerous being bigger, stronger, less predictable etc etc. Wary doesn't mean scared or that I hate them, though.

On a personal level of course but the phrase "women as a class" is used constantly on here.

"Woman as a class" are/ should be wary of men?

I'm not wary of dogs or horses. Spent all my childhood around them- the vast majority of them are wonderful. I'm not wary of horses because one once threw me. I am wary of bulls; anyone being around stock is as they are all potentially dangerous.

Some women are wary of men Lass, and I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be so.

Are women wary of men ? I'm not. I'd be very surprised if my female friends have a view of life that they need to be wary of all men until they prove otherwise.

I'm not wary of dogs either.

Yeah exactly errol. I would like to know what last means. Do you hate what they do? Are you wary? Or do you actually hate men?

Being more wary isn't the same thing as hating though, is it Devi? I'm wary of any dog I don't know, but most of them are delightful.

I am not against feminism because feminists do enormous good countering the oppression of women. However I am suspicious on any form of class politics which sees people as groups rather than individuals and opposes one group with a feared other.

Yes - I'm a feminist but while some of the class analysis stuff may be useful theoretically and in thinking about how inequalities and injustices arise and how to counter them, its not a good thing if that translates into tribalism. Pitting two groups against each other can only be destructive.

Thank you dusty.
It's not helpful at all to the OP to say "people abuse".
If you put a woman in a room with 100 men and 100 women, statistically 5 men would be rapists and no women.
I think "hate" is a strong term but I think many women are wary of/distrustful of men and for good reason.

MrsDustyBusty I don't think it's that simple.

Has something happened that has caused you to feel this way OP?

Obviously, there are very general patterns of male and female behaviour. But when men and women are understood as homogenous groups it gets a bit problematic.

I am not against feminism because feminists do enormous good countering the oppression of women. However I am suspicious on any form of class politics which sees people as groups rather than individuals and opposes one group with a feared other. That isn't healthy for society imo. At the moment many terrorist attacks are perpetrated by people who call themselves Muslims. But you would not say you hate all Muslims on that basis would you?

If we are going to talk in generalities, men and women tend to do bad things in different ways. Men commit more violent and sexual abuse while women tend to abuse emotionally and psychologically. But even that's only generally speaking. A friend of mine who works in child protection says the number of children being sexually abused by women is far higher than we realise. It's just that it isn't reported as much and often cases don't get to court.

So people are people really - there are just very general patterns of behaviour within different groups.

Both men and women abuse is a stupid, deeply disingenuous argument. Women abuse on nothing like the scale that men do. Women do it too just doesn't work as an argument here because women don't, the statistics of women's abuse show that it's a vanishingly small issue.

Men, however, legitimise abuse of women across societies, they extract unpaid labour from women on which their version of what society depends and what is the reward for women? Sexual, financial and social abuse hidden, mocked and shrugged at.

And if men in general wanted the world to be fair for women, they're in the position to do it. But they don't. They don't even want it discussed. So there's reason enough to feel a generalised contempt for men in general.

Both women and men abuse. It's about the individual not the gender and the overwhelming majority of men are good, kind decent people, it's not like they are all abusers. So I think uour position is extreme. It's too much of a generalisation. It also fails to see the good in so many people.

What's causing you to feel this way?

LastGirlOnTheLeft

I know what you mean. I too have a husband and sons whom I love profoundly.

Personally, I don't think it's about hating all men, or even just hating the abusers. We all know that the vast majority of men are not abusive.

However once I started to read more about feminism and the statistics concerning abuse, I had something of a sea change in my outlook.

You suddenly realise that what you had taken for granted because 'that's the way things are' takes on a slightly different colour when viewed through the lens of newly acquired knowledge.

I am seeing things going on all around me which didn't bother me before because it was just part of my life, which I now see as 'casual sexism'. All sorts of things like films, attitudes, assumptions.

I'm guessing people who were raised as feminists have come to terms with all this. For me it's been a bit of an eye-opener. It's uncomfortable.

But you have to be realistic. If most women aren't feminists, you can understand how men remain entrenched in some of their views.

I have started to (stealthily) question people, situations, even my own sons and husband.

Sometimes it's quite satisfying, because most of the men I know don't think they are sexist - they're bright, intelligent people. So when I take a stand, there is often a bit of a pause.

You should remind yourself that women abuse animals and children too. Why do you just associate those things with men? Certain forms of abuse like rape are more common to men, but overall people are people.

I try and judge people as individuals rather than representatives of a class.

But it is men who are the vast majority of abusers!!!! So it is obviously gendered!!

And is it the vast majority of men who are abusers?

As others have said, focus your hate on the abusers
Better that than a generalised hate, but maybe better yet would be if you could try to direct your emotions towards some positive purpose?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2685909-Im-starting-to-hate-men